Sands of Truth
by Vader's Fallen Angel
Summary: Stories may be true, they may not be. But Tatooine is the land of legends.


A/N: some inspiration taken from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.

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Tatooine is a planet of legends. It is real too. Real in its brutality, in its grittiness. It is real to Outsiders who meet its uncompromising harshness the moment they land and strain their eyes in an attempt to see. It is real to the outlaws who seek to hide or thrive where no civilized being would hunt them. It is real to its people, more so than anyone else because they know there is more than they can see.

It is real in life. It is real in death. But Tatooine is a land of myth and its children know that.

So men brag in cantinas and hunch over drinks murmuring of what they've seen and heard. Women gather and speak in their own language of what lies outside the door, of the desert and illusions. Children tell stories in play of what could be or might have been. Parents and elders teach them stories. Of what happened to the girl who didn't listen to her parents, or what befell the boy who abandoned his friends.

Maybe the stories are true and maybe they aren't. Reality is impossible to know and impossible to ignore among whirling sands.

So the children listen and remember and when they grow they tell their own children. Because whether or not they believe, the stories might be true.

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_Cultured, beautiful Naboo has stories of The Bright Ones, who would take your hand and bid you dance with them. Then you would awake in a ring feeling as though a night had past though in truth it had been a hundred years. A clever man might escape though, so long as he ate no food and took no drink. Otherwise he would be bound to them forever._

_Padme smiles at her handsome husband; the Jedi who swept her off her feet. Their time together always seems to fly by and she does not wish to waste it debating their different politics. He is so passionate in his beliefs that some days she feels she wants to agree with him for no other reason. But she keeps her head and her principles. Years later she will be crying and begging him to listen, but still manage to keep enough strength to refuse what he offers her_

_But she doesn't think of the Bright Ones now or later. She is the educated child of educated parents on a modern planet. Legends are taught not by elders with the wisdom of time in their eyes but teachers who have graduated from a fine university and can tell their students what their people believed in the 16th century B.D. The Old Ways are school projects and test answers and might be brought up in conversation to show education, but no more._

_Some try to practice the "Old Ways" clumsily in search of meaning and a tie to the past. Others practice it as they always have because they understand. They look upon the researchers and scholars with fond indulgence knowing the scientist can never discover everything by taking it all apart and that the educated ones look on them with the same fond indulgence._

_Affluent, halcyon Naboo has no need to fear old, near-forgotten fables. And so Padme lies next to her beloved, content for the moment to do nothing more than play with his blonde hair thinking of Tatooine's suns. She knows about Tatooine. She's learned about it, been there, and heard some of her lover's childhood. But she is no sand-taught child of the desert like her husband. She does not know Tatooine is a planet where stories can be true._

_And she wouldn't know to be wary if she did._

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Tatooine has different stories than Naboo. There are the stories of spirits and utukki. They speak of djinn, alauwaimis, girtablilu, and tarpatassis. They tell of The Kindly Ones who avenged the deaths of those who were killed by their own kin. Blood spilled by blood calls to them. And they will haunt, destroy, pursue. They tell of Orestes was so pursued for he had killed his mother who killed his father.

"But why wasn't she haunted?" the children ask, "didn't she do the wrong thing?"

"It is wicked to do harm to one's spouse, but her husband was not of her blood and whatever her punishment she did not need to fear The Kindly Ones," the storyteller replies.

"Why do we call them The Kindly Ones when they do such mean things?" the children ask as they listened to the horrors delivered upon kin slayers.

"Hush!" the adults always say. "Hush! Would you called them by some worse name, some insult? Would you provoke them with slurs and scorn, insolence and contempt? They are The Kindly Ones, always remember to call them The Kindly Ones."

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"_It was the same on Alderaan," Leia muses when Luke tells the story. She tells him then of The Fair Folk who snatched babies from cradles and replaced them with their own race. She speaks of a woman who convinced them to return her child by boiling water in eggshells. In a softer voice, after the laughter dies away, she speaks of cold iron and other ways to convince The Fair Folk to return for the babe._

"_We complement them because we fear them. We call them wonderful names least they hear us use insulting ones," she says, eyes distant as they so often are when speaking of her lost world._

"_They were afraid, our ancestors. They feared what lay outside the door, in the shadows, what they could not see, taste, or touch. They feared the forest and what might lurk there. They looked to the seas and wondered what was beneath. They heard the wind and tried to listen. They looked as far as they could but knew there were some things they couldn't see. They were afraid because they knew there were things they did not know or understand," there is a scornful undertone in her voice. Leia defies fear; she disdains it both as a weapon and a weakness. On the Death Star she did not break._

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"Fear has a purpose," Old eyes linger on the proud, the clever, the daring. Some look down, some raise their chins, and some glance away. But in the silence they all falter and eyes are eventually drawn back. The elder would smile, but knows doing so would break the spell. So instead changes from the sharp, declarative voice to one that is softer, hypnotic, "like pain it can tell us when something is wrong. It warns us there is something more, that there are some things we cannot understand, never control. It stops us from taking risks. From trying something new to walking down the dark ally alone. Only three beings know no fear – the desperate, the proud, and the fools. Do not live paralyzed, never daring to leave your bed. But remember what you do not know, what you cannot see, and what none can control."

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"_They feared the unknown," Leia continues, "but we seek it out, peal it back, take it apart. Now we have streets lit up all night. The forest is a well–maintained wood where we picnic. People dive into the ocean and we have machines that can go even further down. The wind is harnessed to provide energy. We have telescopes, maps, and pictures from space. We know now. We don't need to fear the spirits or remember the myths. People know now there are only other beings to fear, and living creatures bleed. They are like us – only mortal in the end. We have no reason to be afraid."_

_She finishes loudly, proudly, and the room cheers. The gathered rebels raise their drinks, pound each other on the back, brag. They are inspired by their fearless leader, like they were once inspired by another fearless leader – a Jedi who once said in the same proud manner, "fear attracts the fearful, be less afraid" – her father._

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Stories may be true and they may not be. Tatooine is a land of legends and remembers them all. You cannot choose to believe everything or dismiss anything. Not in a desert.

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_Luke Skywalker killed the Emperor and Darth Vader._

_That is released on the Holonet, spreads through the galaxy, is whispered in back alleys and is toasted too in Cantinas_

"_But that's not the truth," he says to Leia. He and Vader were dueling. He lasted longer than he thought, glad he had stayed with Yoda rather than going to Bespin for those brief moments when he forgets what he sacrificed. Because after all he heard about Vader, he expected it to be harder. He gained such skill it almost felt as though the Sith was holding back. Then he was knocked to the floor, red blade held to him while his blue one, his father's, spun away. He thought he was dead until the Emperor spoke in a foreign tongue. Whatever he said Vader disagreed and the two began arguing. Luke wasn't sure about what. But Vader turned his saber the other way. The two of them fought. It was breathtaking. Then Vader killed the Emperor. Luke himself had not been idle. He called his father's lightsaber to him and struck down the older man before he had time to recover from his fight with the Emperor._

_He tells this to the High Command. Within the week the whole galaxy knows Luke Skywalker killed the Emperor and Darth Vader._

"_Does it matter?" she asks in reply, weary of explaining the political reasons to him as she tries to fix the universe. Barely twenty-five yet with world-weariness that only grew since loosing Han on Bespin. Leia is her father's child in many ways but has been raised on gentle Alderaan. Her father is born of the desert, but she does not know the tales of his people. She hears Luke's stories, but like her mother does not understand. She looks into her brother's eyes and does not know._

_(To be fair he knows not who his father, mother, or sister are/were either. Does it matter?)_

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"Orestes' mother was a wicked woman. Didn't he do the right thing by killing her?" the children ask.

"Does it matter?" old eyes, often clouded over, now throw sharp look to the questioner.

"Of course it does!" they are indignant in the manner of the young. Children everywhere, of all species, know the universe is black and white and when something is Not Fair.

"To us perhaps. But not to them; not to The Kindly Ones."

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_Luke saved the universe. Everyone says so. He's a hero like his father. He did the Right Thing. They were Evil. Someone had to stop them and he did. Some people rage at him, curse him. But even they can not pretend that he did it for ambition or any evil motive – his blue farm boy eyes dispel any illusion they would like have on that front._

_He is The Hero._

_So why, when Luke thrust his blade into The Villain did he suddenly feel like he was plunged into ice? Why does he understand every moral and logical justification for his actions but also knows, deep in his soul, that he made a mistake? Why does he often wander the corridors unable to sleep? Why when he manages to sleep is he buffeted with nightmares? Why does he feel a constant dread, like some great beast is stalking him, looming over him when his back is turned? Why is he being constantly torn apart, his mind ripped at the edges, soul ragged? Why at his time of triumph is his life worn and unraveling? Why the torment? Why the torture? Why the punishment?_

_And why do voices whisper this is just the beginning?_

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They speak of The Kindly Ones on Tatooine – of those who punish kin killers. Scholars conclude that it is due to the harsh climate, at least in part. On a planet where it is necessary to rely on others merely to survive the killing of ones own family needs to be seen as one of the worst crimes. Most cultures invoke divine retribution as a deterrent, this is no different. Those who study such things are satisfied with this explanation.

The people of Tatooine pass the knowledge on from generation to generation. Some believe The Kindly Ones exist, some do not, but they all speak of them, all teach their children. For The Kindly Ones might be real. Stories are sometimes true. And Tatooine has always been a land of legends.


End file.
